Covering everything from the Big Bang to global warming, The Big Ideas in Science is an accessible and easy-to-use introduction to the scientific world, what it has achieved over the past few hundred years and what it promises for the future.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the second edition
• Introducing Homo scientificus
• Part One: How We Got Here
• 1 Bang, we're off
• Expanding and cooling
• Quarks and leptons
• The strong force
• The electromagnetic force
• The first atomic matter
• The force of gravity
• 2 We are all stardust
• Cosmic rays
• The formation of new elements
• 3 Recipe for a solar system
• Our solar system
• The formation of the Earth
• 4 Life begins
• LUCA
• A definition of life
• How were amino acids joined together?
• 5 Evolution and extinction
• Beneficial mutations
• The role of the environment
• Sexual reproduction
• The emergence of humans
• Part Two: Way of All Flesh
• 6 Life in sequence
• The proteins that make up life
• The DNA molecule
• The Human Genome Project
• Exons and introns
• Switching genes on and off
• 7 From the bottom up
• The genome
• How the cell functions
• Different types of cells in the human body
• 8 Getting it on
• Cell reproduction and mitosis
• Meiosis
• Fertilization
• Super-charging evolution
• 9 Man the defences
• The main invaders
• Entry through the mouth or nose
• The innate immune system
• The adaptive immune system
• 10 Attack of the nerves
• The neuron
• How vision works
• Part Three: Earth, Wind and Fire
• 11 The ground beneath our feet
• The basic structure of the Earth
• Plate tectonics
• 12 Shake, rattle and roll
• Earthquakes
• Subduction
• Volcanoes
• 13 Earth rocks
• Silicate groups
• Variation within rocks
• Basalt and granite
• Metamorphic rocks
• Sedimentary rocks
• The rock cycle
• 14 Wet and windy
• Convection currents
• Circulation cells
• The direction of prevailing winds
• Circular currents in the ocean
• 15 Stormy weather
• Clouds and weather
• The production of rain
• The formation of ice crystals
• Thunder and lightning
• Cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons
• Part Four: We Have The Technology
• 16 Full of energy
• Potential energy and kinetic energy
• Energy and forces
• From energy to heat
• Loss of energy
• 17 Coming in waves
• Wavelength, amplitude and frequency
• Waves and energy
• Electromagnetic radiation
• 18 Information overload
• Boole and logical reasoning
• From decimals to binary
• The microprocessor
• 19 Material advance
• Graphite and graphene
• Two-dimensional materials
• Advanced materials
• Nanomaterials
• 20 It's alive
• The path to modern genetics
• Cloning animals
• Stem cells
• Synthetic biology
• The moral dilemma
• Part Five: When Science Goes Bad
• 21 Fraud, fakery and fantasy
• More cases of scientific fraud
• Data manipulation
• The discovery of ‘cold fusion’
• 22 Shocks and scares
• System 1 and System 2
• GM crops
• The MMR scare
• 23 Hot enough for you?
• The principles of climate change
• Controversy over rising air temperatures
• The effect of water vapour
• Solar radiation
• Changes in the future
• 24 Apocalypse now
• Nuclear war
• Nuclear threats
• Chemical and biological attacks
• Long-term damage to the Earth
• 25 Know your limits
• Setting restrictions on the universe
• Beyond the scientific method
• The use of computers in science
• Quantum theory
• Part Six: Science of The Future
• 26 Back to the future
• Incorrect predictions
• Why do we have rockets?
• Predictions in science fiction
• 27 A.I.
• Robots and intelligent machines
• New types of computer chips
• Computers that are able to learn
• 28 Innerspace
• Treating cancer with gold nanoparticles
• Smart implants for other diseases
• Stimulating tissue growth
• Enhancing our bodies
• 29 A space odyssey
• Getting a rocket into space
• Keeping a rocket travelling in space
• Getting there faster
• 30 Things to come
• Colonizing space
• Capturing more of the Sun's energy
• The death of the Sun